How to Write a Centaur Rap Song
1. As rhythm is a fundamental component of every rap song, one must begin by choosing a beat. Words do not contain any vital force outside of the context of the beat. The beat may consist of one or more bass rhythms overlaid by scratches, audio samples, repeated phrases or environmental sounds (e.g. car door slamming). The beat adds structure, order and coherence to the song.
Thus we begin with:
>Glass breaking<
Man shouts: Get off my mane!
>train whistle blows<
Man shouts: I bring the pain!
>sound of hooves clomping<
Repeat 4x.
2. Wordsmithing should proceed in a stream-of-consciousness direction. The beat provided above gives us ample inspiration to continue the creative process. The opening lines should describe a problem or dilemma, which the MC must then resolve. Note that the phrase “out of da brine,” below, evokes a sense of enigma. What is this brine? Why does our narrator want to stay out of it? Rhyme may be used to create suspense, foreshadowing or merely as a rhetorical device deployed to temporally advance the beat.
Wassup G? See, I’m a centaur
I’m a hybrid human-equine
I can’t drive a small car
But I whiney when I wine
And when I wine and dine
I don’t drive too far
So I arrive alive and stay out of da brine.
3. At this point, the songsmith will need to establish their credentials by staking a claim to authenticity and then defending the claim with hyperbole, grandiose imagery, and invalidating the competition.
You think you got game?
Yeah well I got “mane.”
You wanna bale some hay?
Hey you ain’t even potty trained
I think you’re too tame
While I wax you wane
I fill the cup that you drain
My mad ninja moves
Will un-shod your shoddy hooves
And leave you no reelin’ in pain.
If I was your mother
I would neigh in shame.
I’d say, “Papa Horse
Lets leave this silly foal on the plains.”
4. The establishment of credentials continues with the comparison of the songsmith’s superior traits to that of opposing MC’s.
I got a long ponytail
On my back side
But it’s my man-half
That’s gonna crush your pride
If you wanna scrambled egg,
My human hands can just whisk it
And my horsey hooves
Move faster than Seabiscuit
I got two limbs in the air
Got four in the dirt
I got my withers held high
I eat my straw with yogurt
5. The lines above describe how the centaur is a combination of human and horse, and bears the traits and talents of both. This dazzling array of fine and gross motor skills (whisking an egg, running faster than Seabiscuit), sensory-motor adaptability and well-developed executive functioning imparts a sense of the range of potential kinesthetic feats of prowess at the disposal of the centaur. What the song now requires is a small dose of profanity in order to add a bit of pepper to the already well-seasoned stew of metaphor and theme.
I go faster and faster
Even though the sign says
“Stay off the grass sir”
I must be a bad bastard
Cause I tore up the pasture
When the sign said slow down
I said you can kiss my asters
To the flowers on the ground
I’m the overlord and master.
6. The song now requires a chorus that can be repeated at regular intervals. A bit more “pepper” is added in order to alert the audience to the gravity of the narrator’s intensions.
Horseplay, horseplay
Listen to my voice bray
I don’t stop, clippity-clop
Until you drop your school lunch tray.
Horseplay, horseplay
Now what you gonna say?
You wanna be my neighbor
But you can’t fuckin’ neigh.
The song is now concluded, and the chorus has even supplied
us with a potential title, “Horseplay”, and offered commentary on equine
kinesics, vocalizations and secondary-education. The narrator/MC
has provided their audience with cognitive tools in order to understand
the dual realities implied in the horse/human binary identity of centaurship.
These themes have been analyzed, and their attendant issues have
been “put to pasture,” leaving the listener with a profound sense of respect
for the range of fine and gross motor abilities displayed by these mythological mammals. 